Murder Suicide Read Online Free PDF

clean."
    Heller was referring to removing tumors completely, leaving no cancerous cells behind.  "Then I wouldn’t even consider depriving you of your symptoms.  Your patients obviously benefit from them."
    "Maybe."  Heller suddenly looked burdened.  "I don’t know exactly why you’re here, Frank, but I’m glad you are.  I need someone to help me understand what happened to John Snow."  He sounded half sad, half angry.  "I don’t mind telling you, I’m having a bit of trouble with this."
    "Say more."
    "Understand, I’m no stranger to patients dying on me.  You saw that woman who just left here?"
    "Yes, I did."
    "Forty-one years old.  Three little kids.  I give her five, six weeks.  An outside chance at seven."
    "I’m sorry to hear that.  What’s her diagnosis?"
    "Glioblastoma."  His lip curled slightly, as though mentioning the enemy was enough to spark his fury.  "Ten days ago, she had a funny experience.  She couldn’t remember her black Lab’s name.  Fifteen, twenty seconds, then it came to her.  But it struck her as odd.  She started to worry.  Her mom had the start of Alzheimer’s before she turned fifty.  So she goes to see her internist — Karen Grant, over at Brigham.  Karen grabs an MRI.  Boom.  Malignant tissue obliterating forty percent of her cortex.  Inoperable.  Nothing at all I can do for her."
    "That’s got to be tough."
    "For her it is," Heller said.
    "I meant, for you," Clevenger said.
    "No.  It isn’t.  See, that’s what I’m getting at.  When I’m not even in the game, I don’t lay my heart on the line.  I’m not a masochist.  But with John..."  He leaned forward slightly, raised his hands like a priest blessing a parishioner.  "I could have changed John Snow’s life.  That’s why I went to war with the Ethics Committee.  I put my career on the line for him."  His blue eyes blazed with intensity.  "I could have pulled off a miracle today."
    There was the arrogance Heller was famous for.  "You could have stopped his seizures," Clevenger said, testing how easily Heller could be brought back to earth.
    Heller suddenly seemed aware his hands were in midair.  "Just for starters," he said, laying them back on his thighs.  "John’s epilepsy was clearly connected to his creative genius.  When he applied his mind most intensely — when he was inventing — he was at greatest risk for a seizure.  I can’t say why that was the case, but it was.  Seizure-free, he could have done things with his mind that literally would have short-circuited it before.  He seemed elated by that prospect.  And, then, he goes and does this."  The muscles of his jaw suddenly began churning.  "I don’t get it."
    "What sort of man was he?" Clevenger asked.
    Heller thought that over for a few seconds.  "Driven."  He smiled.  "We had that in common."
    Clevenger laughed.  Heller might be arrogant, but he obviously knew it, and that instantly made him more likable.
    "He was a passionate man," Heller went on.  "About his work, about everything in life.  He hated the fact that his brain was ‘broken,’ ‘defective’ — his words, not mine.  So, you tell me:  Why would he quit?"
    Clevenger didn’t see any reason to keep Heller completely in the dark about the Snow investigation.  "Why do you assume he quit ?" he asked.
    Heller shrugged.  "You don’t like that word.  Okay.  You’re a psychiatrist.  I respect that.  I know people sometimes take their own lives because they’re depressed.  They lose their jobs, go bankrupt.  Their marriages break up.  Maybe some of them were abused or abandoned as kids.  And I know John had his share of trouble in life.  Things were falling apart on him."  He seemed suddenly to be struggling to keep his anger in check.  "So maybe you can help me understand why he would bail on me after I..."
    "I meant," Clevenger interrupted, "why do you assume he killed himself?"
    Heller looked taken aback.  "As opposed to..."
    "